Alabama

Huntsville's relationships with military are special

U.S. Sen. John J. Sparkman at his desk. Redstone Archives identify this photo as 1940, although the calendar on the wall is difficult to make out.

Since eve of WWII, city has known importance of bullets, rockets and more

By LEE ROOP
Times Columnist
lee.roop@htimes.com

The story of how Huntsville became one of America's great Army towns can't be told better - or more succinctly - than Times Sports Editor John Pruett told it two years ago in another special section on Huntsville history. What follows will "borrow" liberally from Pruett's work.

Pruett wasn't asked to address, although he certainly could have, the companion story of why the Army and Huntsville worked so well. It took more than national politics, decisions made in Washington and America's evolving military needs to make it happen. Why this is more love story than political thriller is another story as fascinating as the history itself.

First, let's rehash the basic plot.

It was April 1941, the eve of World War II. America needed new chemical manufacturing and storage facilities to supplement the only existing such plant in Maryland. Congress approved the money for what would become Huntsville Arsenal.

Getting credit for that in The Huntsville Times was then-Congressman John Sparkman of Huntsville. Less than a week later, the War Department announced that a $6 million ordnance assembly plant would go next door to the chemical plant.

The Army "took over" its first tract of land southwest of Huntsville, in Pruett's words. Eventually, the Army would take some 35,000 acres of prime agricultural land bounded on the south by the Tennessee River. Established black farming communities and established white farms disappeared forever, and survivors still grumble.

A field test of the TOW missle in the early 1980s. The acronym denotes a tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided weapon.

But greater Huntsville embraced the two plants because its established textile mills were fading. Labor problems - a huge walkout of nearly 1,800 textile workers occurred a few years earlier - and mill closings left the city eager for dependable new jobs. That eagerness would never fade.

Many longtime Huntsville families found work at the "bullet factory," as the arsenals were jokingly called. Women and men worked side by side to meet the nation's war needs.

When the war ended, America's appetite for rifle grenades, bombs, mustard gas and tear gas was gone. The ordnance lines were shut down in October 1945, and 6,500 workers were idled. The future of the huge base was in doubt.

Enter John Sparkman again. Now a U.S. senator, he teamed with Gen. Holger Toftoy to persuade the Army to choose Huntsville as the site of a rocket arsenal. Toftoy brought captured German scientists, led by Wernher von Braun, to the city. The future of Huntsville was headed into overdrive.

Dr. Wernher Von Braun stands by a static display of the Saturn V test vehicle at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.

More or less.

Von Braun's team moved to a new space agency called NASA in 1960, which was devoted to the peaceful exploration of space and the race to the moon. NASA would have its ups and downs, most infamously a major "down" at the end of the Apollo moon program.

But the Army missile side of Redstone continued steadily. Thousands more workers came to the city to design and manage a series of battlefield missiles including the Redstone, Little John and TOW. Those missiles are proudly displayed now at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.

NASA got the glory, but Huntsville knew it needed the Army, and the Army grew to appreciate Huntsville. Local leaders loved the secure Army and Defense Department jobs and worked hard to accommodate the base. Even during the Vietnam War, Army personnel were celebrated here.

Those military personnel and federal transplants came to love the "Rocket City" back for a dozen reasons. Instead of Grits, Ala., as cartoonist Gary Trudeau satirized the city when President Richard Nixon came here at the height of Watergate, they found themselves in an affluent city that valued education, solved its racial problems and proved ideal for raising children.

The climate offered four distinct seasons but mild winters. It was "below the frost line and above the bug line," people said. Major cities weren't far, and there were mountains and lakes galore for play. The Arsenal itself boasted a fine golf course, officers' club and base hospital.

The cost of living wasn't bad, either, and military retirees flooded here when a court decision exempted military pensions from state income taxes.

How popular is Huntsville with military officers? Numerous commanders of the Arsenal, men with the financial resources to retire anywhere, chose Huntsville as their final home. And they don't just live here. They remain active in the affairs of a community that values their contributions and experience.

What began in World War II shows no signs of stopping. America's most advanced missile and computer defense work is done here now by the sons and daughters of those original Arsenal workers and by the tens of thousands of people who moved here and found they liked it.

"Give it six months and you'll never want to leave," Army people used to tell newcomers. Now, it doesn't even take that long.